English Wikipedia - The Free Encycl...
Download this dictionary
Control rod
Control rods
are used in
nuclear reactors
to control the fission rate of
uranium
and
plutonium
. They are composed of
chemical elements
such as
boron
,
silver
,
indium
and
cadmium
that are capable of absorbing many
neutrons
without themselves fissioning. Because these elements have different
capture cross sections
for
neutrons
of varying energies, the composition of the control rods must be designed for the reactor's
neutron spectrum
.
Boiling water reactors
(BWR),
pressurized water reactors
(PWR) and
heavy water reactors
(HWR) operate with
thermal neutrons
, while
breeder reactors
operate with fast neutrons.
See more at Wikipedia.org...
© This article uses material from
Wikipedia
®
and is licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License
and under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License